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About a month ago, I went to urgent care with what I thought was genital herpes. I was scared to death and my boyfriend was extremely depressed, knowing that he's been my only partner and he didn't even know he had it, since he had been tested and they always came back negative. The doctor there told me it was folliculitis and gave me Keflex for it. I went to see my obgyn a few days later as the pain got worse, only for her to tell me it looked like textbook herpes. I had two cultures done and a blood test. The blood test came back inconclusive, but the two cultures came back positive for HSV 1. She gave me an ointment and Valtrex if I ever had another outbreak. She told me I may never have another one though.

I've already had it come back within the month because I'm also being treated for Crohn's disease and my immune system is weak, though I've been told HSV 1 doesn't reoccur as often as HSV 2. This has still been a hard diagnosis to handle.

My question is, even though he passed it to me, is it possible for me to give the virus to his genitals as well? He's never had an outbreak, so we're not sure if he gave it to me through oral of vaginal sex, though I think it was probably oral as his partners were HSV free, to his and their knowledge and members of his family frequently get cold sores. I know the body builds up an immunity to it to an extent after a while, so I wasn't sure if he could catch it anywhere else.

Thanks for your Reply!

1 Replies |Watch This Discussion | Report This| Share this:HSV 1About a month ago, I went to urgent care with what I thought was genital herpes. I was scared to death and my boyfriend was extremely depressed, knowing that he's been my only partner and he didn't even know he had it, since he had been tested and they always came back negative. The doctor there told me it was folliculitis and gave me Keflex for it. I went to see my obgyn a few days later as the pain got worse, only for her to tell me it looked like textbook herpes. I had two cultures done and a blood test. The blood test came back inconclusive, but the two cultures came back positive for HSV 1. She gave me an ointment and Valtrex if I ever had another outbreak. She told me I may never have another one though.

I've already had it come back within the month because I'm also being treated for Crohn's disease and my immune system is weak, though I've been told HSV 1 doesn't reoccur as often as HSV 2. This has still been a hard diagnosis to handle.

My question is, even though he passed it to me, is it possible for me to give the virus to his genitals as well? He's never had an outbreak, so we're not sure if he gave it to me through oral of vaginal sex, though I think it was probably oral as his partners were HSV free, to his and their knowledge and members of his family frequently get cold sores. I know the body builds up an immunity to it to an extent after a while, so I wasn't sure if he could catch it anywhere else.

it's not unusual to have a recurrence within 2 months of the initial infection. At this point only time will tell if you are going to be part of the small percentage that have more frequent hsv1 genital recurrences or not. Indeed between having chrohn's and the treatments for it, you might experience more recurrences than average unfortunately.

so what do you do? don't hesitate to give daily suppressive therapy a try to keep recurrences few and far between. Even though your partner also has hsv1 so the risk of transmitting it to his genitals is very low, you probably have enough disruptions to your sex life with the chrohn's when it flares up and who needs more? also never a bad idea to get tested for yeast and bacterial infections vaginally if you are having frequent symptoms too.

keep asking questions!

Talking about std testing is NORMAL and something we all should be doing EVERY TIME before we have sex with a new partner :)

Thanks for your Reply!

Report This| Share this:HSV 1it's not unusual to have a recurrence within 2 months of the initial infection. At this point only time will tell if you are going to be part of the small percentage that have more frequent hsv1 genital recurrences or not. Indeed between having chrohn's and the treatments for it, you might experience more recurrences than average unfortunately.

so what do you do? don't hesitate to give daily suppressive therapy a try to keep recurrences few and far between. Even though your partner also has hsv1 so the risk of transmitting it to his genitals is very low, you probably have enough disruptions to your sex life with the chrohn's when it flares up and who needs more? also never a bad idea to get tested for yeast and bacterial infections vaginally if you are having frequent symptoms too.

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